At that time [...] the console was about this big with four faders on it. And there was one speaker right in the middle [...] and that was it. When they invented stereo, I remember thinking 'Why? What do you want two speakers for?', because it ruined the sound from our point of view. You know, we had everything coming out of one speaker; now it had to come out of two speakers. It sounded like... very... naked.[4]

”

Limited edition

Amazon.com advertised the set as a limited edition item in the United States, and less than a month prior to the set's release announced the site had sold out of units.[5][6] Less than two weeks before 9 September, many other online retailers announced the selling out of units from their inventories, including the Canadian Amazon.ca site.[7]

EMI announced on 3 September that more mono box sets were to be pressed due to high demand from online pre-orders. It will still remain a limited edition but will not be limited to 10,000 copies as originally stated.[8]

Disc listing

The thirteen-disc collection contains the remastered mono versions of every Beatles album released in true mono. The original 1965 stereo mixes of Help! and Rubber Soul are included as bonuses on their respective albums. (Both albums also had been digitally remixed for the CD release in 1987.) The box contains a new two-disc compilation album entitled Mono Masters, which compiles all the mono mixes of singles, B-sides and EP tracks that did not originally appear on any of the UK albums.

The albums Yellow Submarine, Abbey Road and Let It Be are not included in this set, as no true mono mixes of these albums were issued. A mono version of Yellow Submarine was released in the UK, but it was only a fold-down from the stereo mix, not a unique, separate mono mix. The previously unavailable true mono mixes of the four new Beatles songs released on the Yellow Submarine album ("Only a Northern Song", "All Together Now", "Hey Bulldog" and "It's All Too Much"), originally intended for a separate, but ultimately scrapped, mono EP, which would have also included a mono mix of "Across the Universe", are included on the Mono Masters compilation. Abbey Road and Let It Be were issued in the UK in mono on Reel-To-Reel tape and on LP in Brazil and other countries, but again, only as fold-downs from the respective stereo versions.

Also omitted from this set, but included in the Stereo box, is a DVD containing the mini-documentaries included with the stereo remasters of the different albums.

Chart performance

The set debuted at #40 in Billboard'sTop 200 and the magazine reported that 12,000 copies were sold in its first week of release.[9][10] In Japan, it debuted at #10, selling over 20,000 copies in its first week on the Oricon album charts.[11]